The Colonial Sublime: The Nature in/of History in Daniel Dencik’s The Gold Coast (2015)

Foto:HaslundDencik

This paper discusses how Daniel Dencik’s fictionalized historical feature film The Gold Coast (2015) engages with the history and historiography of Danish colonialism and participation in the transatlantic slave trade. Through an analysis of the role of nature in the film’s engagement with colonial history, I suggest the importance of a critical examination of what I call the colonial sublime in historical representation of colonialism today.

Mathias Danbolt is an Assistant professor at University of Copenhagen.